Chapter 11 - THE TRUTH AT LAST
Maeve told him everything.
Not in the hospital.
Not while Finn was still recovering.
Elias waited until they returned to the estate.
Then he dismissed the staff from the library.
Only Salvatore and Gabriel remained.
Maeve stood near the fireplace.
She removed Sienna’s pearls first.
Placed them on the table.
Then the engagement ring.
Then the wedding ring.
Her hand shook when she set that one down.
“My name is Maeve Kathleen Donnelly.”
Elias sat in the wheelchair across from her.
His expression revealed nothing.
“I know.”
Maeve stopped breathing.
“What?”
“I have known for thirteen days.”
She stared at him.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
The room tilted.
Maeve looked at Salvatore.
Then Gabriel.
Gabriel avoided her eyes.
“You all knew?”
Salvatore said quietly, “Not from the beginning.”
Maeve turned back to Elias.
“You let me keep lying.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to understand why.”
Her eyes filled with hurt.
“You tested me.”
The accusation struck deeper than Elias expected.
“Yes.”
Maeve laughed once.
A bitter sound.
“Of course you did.”
She turned away.
Elias frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means everyone with money thinks they are entitled to turn poorer people into experiments.”
Salvatore’s eyebrows rose.
Gabriel looked at the floor.
Elias’s voice cooled.
“That is not what happened.”
Maeve spun toward him.
“Your fiancée abandoned you, so you pretended your injury was permanent.”
Silence.
Maeve stared at him.
Then her face changed.
“What?”
Elias did not move.
Maeve whispered, “Pretended?”
Salvatore closed his eyes.
Gabriel said nothing.
Maeve looked at Elias’s legs.
Then back at his face.
“You can walk.”
Elias knew there was no way around it now.
“Yes.”
Maeve stepped backward.
“You can walk.”
“Yes.”
“You have been able to walk this entire time?”
“Almost.”
Her breathing became shallow.
“The hospital?”
“Dr. Keller helped.”
“The wheelchair?”
“Part of the test.”
Maeve looked physically ill.
“All those times I asked whether you needed help.”
“I never wanted you to feel responsible for me.”
“All those nights.”
She covered her mouth.
“You watched me feel guilty for deceiving a man I thought had lost his legs.”
Elias’s jaw tightened.
“You were deceiving me.”
“Because my brother needed surgery.”
“And because you accepted.”
The words landed hard.
Maeve looked at him.
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly.
“I did.”
Tears slid down her face.
“That is mine to carry.”
She pointed toward his legs.
“But this is yours.”
Elias stood.
Maeve flinched.
Not because she feared him.
Because seeing him upright made every memory rearrange itself.
He was taller than she had imagined.
Stronger.
Whole.
The man she had tried to protect from humiliation had never needed protection.
Maeve whispered, “I stood beside you because I believed you had lost something.”
Elias stepped toward her.
“And if I had?”
“I would have stayed until the agreement ended.”
“Only because of Finn?”
Maeve looked away.
That silence told him too much.
Elias continued.
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know who you are.”
He stopped.
That was the one answer he had not prepared for.
Maeve picked up none of the jewelry.
She walked toward the door.
Elias said her real name for the first time.
“Maeve.”
She stopped.
Something in her shoulders trembled.
He continued.
“The wedding was fraudulent.”
She looked back.
“Yes.”
“So you are free to leave.”
Maeve nodded.
“Good.”
The word hurt him more than it should have.
She reached the doorway.
Then turned.
“I hope someday you learn that loyalty you have to trick people into proving isn’t loyalty.”
Elias said nothing.
Maeve left.
Five minutes later, Gabriel entered with another message.
Sienna Ashford had disappeared from Margaret’s townhouse.
Salvatore looked toward the empty doorway.
“She knows Maeve told him.”
Elias’s expression changed.
“Find Sienna.”
Gabriel reached for his phone.
Elias looked at Maeve’s wedding ring on the table.
“And put two men outside Finn Donnelly’s hospital room.”
Gabriel nodded.
May you like
Elias’s voice lowered.
“No one touches that boy.”
